On March 25th the European Commission and European Monetary Institute will publish their reports on the prepardness of the various EU states for monetary union. The reports will be in two parts , the first will focus on the degree of legal preparation which has already been achieved in all likely participating countries. The second will be to what extent each state has achieved a "high degree of sustainable convergence by reference to the fullfilment of the criteria."

April will be spent to the consideration of both reports by national and the European parliaments. Some national parliaments may direct their governments on how they should vote regarding the participating of other states. The views of the German houses will be closely watched .

On May 2nd and 3rd the EU Council made up of the heads of state will meet to formalise which countries will participate and at what rate the various national currencies will be locked together.

On January 1st, 1999, all national currencies will change over and will effectively be denominations of the euro.